Remote controls provide to users a convenient way to control the functions of home entertainment equipment, including televisions, receivers, cable equipment, blu-ray players, and digital video recorders, such as those created by TiVo Inc. of Alviso, Calif. Although device-specific remote controls are provided with many components, other components provide “universal” remote controls that are capable of controlling more than one device.
Some remote controls have a “backlight” feature. Typically, a backlight provides a light that shines behind translucent buttons of a remote control in order to make the buttons more visible in the dark. Some remote controls use a dedicated backlight button. The added button adds to visual clutter, resulting in user confusion. In addition, users of the remote control must find the backlight button in order to invoke the feature. One way of accomplishing this is to use glow-in-the-dark materials on the backlight button. However, glow-in-the-dark materials reduce the aesthetic quality of the remote control. Further, these materials must be exposed to light to achieve the glow-in-the-dark effect, and most remote controls are found somewhere between the sofa cushions, reducing or eliminating exposure to light.
Some remote controls combine features. For example, the pressing of any button, on some remote controls, results in the invocation of the backlight feature. This allows the user to see subsequent buttons, but still requires the user to press a first button. However, if the first button a user presses is the wrong button, then an undesirable effect may occur, thereby interrupting the user's experience. Users may “work around” this problem by covering the source of the signal emanated by the remote control, but this requires two-handed operation.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.